NaMo makes India proud

Modi's invitation to heads of neighbouring governments for the swearing in ceremony on the 26th is a giant step in the right direction.

In one bold stroke of statesmanship, Prime Minister designate Mr. Narendra Damodar Modi has raised India's stature not only in South Asia but all over the world. He has disarmed even his critics like Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti and perhaps preempted future opposition from Mamata Banerjee to a Teesta river treaty with Bangladesh. And indeed he has demonstrated his resolve to take the high ground vis a vis India's neighbours and not allow petty provincial considerations preventing a more cooperative environment in South Asia by action and not just words. For some of us who have been promoting the cause of South Asian regional cooperation, Mr. Modi's invitation to heads of neighbouring governments for the swearing in ceremony on the 26th is a giant step in the right direction. I had heard about his desire to focus his foreign policy on India's neighbourhood, but that he would do so even before taking office is beyond expectations. I hope the ministry of external relations and our obdurate and opaque security agencies will take the cue and support the cause of making borders in South Asia irrelevant within the first term of this government.

Vision

Dr. Manmohan Singh, whose highest priority was to achieve a regionally integrated South Asia, would surely be ruing his inability to lead from the front. Instead allowing the diplomatic and security establishment and the myopic minions within his party to ensnare him by their sophistry and projections of false security threats. By extending this invitation, Mr. Modi has shown not only that he has his clear priorities, often out of the bureaucratic box, but also that in foreign policy he is more likely to follow Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee's style of making the policy announcement first and leaving it to the bureaucracy to implement it. Mr. Vajpayee had done exactly that when he announced the Indo-Sri Lanka free trade agreement on a visit to Colombo, taking Raisina Hill and Udyog Bhawan by complete surprise.

But in doing so, Mr. Modi must have hugely disappointed all those who in their crass and dangerous single-minded focus on increasing their channels' TRPs have tried to convert India's relations with its neighbours in to a gladiator sport. These television gladiators were hoping that Mr Modi will spout into jingoism and raise the level of xenophobia in India and subsequently in the neighbouring countries as well. How thoroughly dejected they must feel that he has instead forced them to discuss a future for South Asia that is potentially peaceful and prosperous based on bilateral and regional cooperation. I am not at all surprised that there has been a sudden hush on the channels because this is completely against their expectations. The media has been cheated of the man whom they supported in the hope he will display his 56" chest even in India's relations with its neighbours. They are bound to be further disappointed because in Mr. Modi they probably have a realist strategic leader who realises that the true success for India is not in browbeating or being a big brother to its smaller neighbours but in ensuring that India eliminates the scourge of unemployment and making its people prosperous in the next two decades. He knows that if he succeeds in achieving this objective, India's neighbours, benefiting from India's huge, rapidly expanding and open domestic markets, will recognise its stature. As everywhere else, so in international relations, respect and regard are earned and not demanded.

Authority

It will also disappoint those who wanted to see Mr. Modi be captive to RSS ideology, which according to their distorted perception will have India breaking off relations with all Muslim countries. This perception suffers from two fatal flaws. First, it assumes that Mr. Modi is so beholden to the RSS that he will seek his directions from Nagpur for all policy initiatives. He has demonstrated otherwise in Gujarat and now by this bold invitation has reinforced this independence.

Second, it believes RSS ideology prohibits India from improving its relations with Muslim states. I have no claims whatsoever on understanding the RSS traditions and ideology as I have not had the chance to study them, but from what I can see and by sheer common sense, no organisation professing to pursue national interest, can possibly have a stand of minimising relations with countries on whom India is so critically dependent for its energy security. I hope we will at this time of paradigmatic shift, shed our stereotype perceptions and come together on the basis of real experience and evaluate it on the benchmark of national interest. Nothing else matters.

Statesman

All policy initiatives, whether in the domain of foreign policy or domestic developments, must be taken to serve the national interest. And by putting the ball firmly in Nawaz Sharif's court with this invitation, Mr. Modi has unambiguously lifted India's stock, thereby serving our national interest. Those who argue, as unfortunately some senior journalists did on the electronic media on Wednesday, that such a sudden invitation will diminish India's prestige or standing in case the invitation was not accepted should know better. This is a juvenile argument that merits to be junked immediately as it is premised upon a sense of false ego and a wrong understanding of national pride. Leaders make their nations proud by being statesmen and rising above petty issues.

From Modi's point of view, the historical moment of a non-Congress party government coming in to office in Delhi with an absolute majority of its own for the very first time, is a moment to be shared with one and all and specially with India's neighbours.

Those who do not accept the invitation will be seen as being churlish and petulant by the global community. Those who do will be comforted that India wants to share its moments of joy and glory with them and sees them as equal partners. For me this is an unprecedented act of statesmanship at a time when nation states cover borders with barbed wire and bayonets.

Such action prompts me to strengthen my resolve to do whatever I can to push forward the agenda of making South Asian borders as places where nations interact.The writer is Senior Fellow Centre for Policy Research and former Director of ICRIER